


Gifted

by avantegarda



Series: It's the New World, Darling-A 19th-20th Century AU [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Easter, Gen, Humor, Siblings, So Much Arguing, and a lot of arguing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 21:46:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18157418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avantegarda/pseuds/avantegarda
Summary: Celegorm and Maglor have nothing in common. But they still love each other. Even when giant dogs are involved.





	1. Back Home

**Author's Note:**

> Blah blah blah Victorian Fëanorions you know the drill.  
> Maglor is about 18 in this; Celegorm is about 16.  
> (And yes, Nerdanel's family is Irish. Super Irish. You don't even know)

_ London _

_ 1882 _

 

We’re all gifted in this family. Every last rotten one of us. At least that’s what Dad has been telling us ever since we were born.

My oldest brother Maedhros is brilliant at essentially everything, particularly winning arguments and charming girls, and is top of his class at Oxford. Maglor sings beautifully and can learn any musical instrument just by glaring at it for twenty minutes. Caranthir, while a nasty little brat, has an excellent head for numbers and business and will almost certainly be running the Bank of England by the time he’s thirty. Curufin is shaping up to be a brilliant mad inventor just like Dad, and the twins...it is difficult to tell at their age, but they certainly seem to excel at getting into trouble and then getting back out again by being adorable.

As for myself—well, no one can deny that I am the best pheasant hunter in the family and the best rugby player at St. Francis. But I have always thought that the way I’m most gifted isn’t so much something I can  _ do _ , as something (someone?) I was  _ given _ .

 

“Whose  _ horse  _ is this?”

It was Easter, and as with all holidays, us older boys had all returned to London from our far-flung second homes: Maedhros from Oxford, where he was studying law; Maglor from Vienna, where he was studying being loud; and Caranthir and I from boarding school, where we were attempting to avoid studying at all. The holiday was off to an excellent start for me as I had come home to a delightful surprise, though it was evident from the horror-stricken look on Maglor’s face that he did not find it so delightful.

“He is not a horse, he’s an Irish wolfhound,” I informed him proudly. “And a very well-bred one at that.”

The animal in question was lying on the parlor floor, sleeping peacefully. He was a large, shaggy gray beast with a large nose and soulful eyes, and I already loved him more than all my brothers put together.

“More wolf than hound, if you ask me,” said Maglor, eyeing the sleeping dog with suspicion. “And where, pray tell, have you acquired this dog from at such short notice? He certainly wasn’t here at Christmas.”

I grinned, unable to resist a bit of bragging. “He arrived just a few days before we arrived home. Oromë gave him to me.”

“My, my, aren’t we grand! Look who’s on a first-name basis with the Duke of Kilhenny!”

“He’s an old friend of Granddad Mahtan’s, and perhaps you’d be on a first-name basis with him as well if you didn’t spend all our visits to Ireland in the pub watching old codgers play the fiddle…”

“All right, all right,” Maglor said with a sigh, shaking his head. He glanced at the dog again. “What’s his name, then?”

“Huan.”

“Dreadful name. What is that, Spanish?”

“Not  _ Juan _ , you fool, Huan. It’s an old Irish name meaning Hound of Heaven.”

“I’ll believe  _ that _ when I see it,” Maglor snorted. “He’s certainly the largest dog I’ve ever seen.”

“You don’t know the half of it!” I exclaimed. “He’s just a puppy now, but Oromë said he’s likely to double in size by next year.”

Maglor looked horrified. “Saints preserve us.”

“Oh, stop being so prissy. He’s a brilliant dog, and once I have him trained up he will be the best guard dog in London.”

“I suppose he may at that,” said Maglor, wrinkling his nose. “Just keep him out of  _ my  _ room, if you please.”

And I thought that was the end of it. Truly I did.

 

The thing is, if you were to see Maglor and I walking down the street together (which would be a rare sight, but for the sake of argument) you might be quite surprised to discover we’re brothers. For one thing, we don’t resemble one another in the slightest. I take after Mum’s side of the family, with Granny Ellie’s yellow hair and Granddad Mahtan’s sturdy build. Maglor is skinny as a stick with wild dark curls he absolutely refuses to cut (he thinks he looks like King Charles II; I think he looks like a banshee from one of Mum’s stories). We have the same color eyes and are approximately the same height, but there the resemblance ends. For another thing, we share almost no common interests, have completely different sleeping schedules, and are almost constantly shouting at each other.

I suppose, if one can ignore his habit of playing the violin at the dinner table and the fact that he never knows what day of the week it is, my older brother is a decent enough chap. But I would not tolerate him casting aspersions on my dog’s character. Huan was, in fact, the most remarkable beast I’d ever had the pleasure of knowing. 

He had an almost human intelligence, really. Somehow he had learned, with almost no training on my part, to wake me up at exactly six o’clock every morning by sticking his shaggy gray snout in my face and licking me on the nose (much more pleasant than a shrieking alarm clock). Huan chased any vermin out of the house better than any cat could, had learned to sit, shake hands, and roll over within two days, and seemed to actually  _ understand _ the English language rather than just recognizing certain words. I was dreading the end of Easter holidays in two weeks, when I wouldn’t be able to see Huan again for nearly two months until the end of term.

As much as I hated to admit it, though, my beloved dog had one habit I didn’t seem to be able to break him of. For no discernable reason, he absolutely loved eating paper.

There didn’t seem to be any scientific explanation for this behavior. Dad suggested that perhaps his diet was too low in fiber, whereas Mum thought he most likely just enjoyed the taste. The twins thought the whole thing was wildly funny and kept attempting to feed him their homework (Maedhros, wisely, kept all his university papers locked up in his trunk). While the whole situation did rend Huan incapable of fetching the morning paper, as long as we kept any books, letters, and telegrams on high enough shelves it was quite tolerable.

Three days after coming home, my attempts to write an essay for history class while using as few words as possible was interrupted by a blood-curdling scream from down the hall. Certain someone was being maimed, at least, I dashed to the source of the noise, only to find Maglor in his bedroom glaring at Huan with murderous intent.

“What happened here?” I asked.

“What happened? What  _ happened? _ ” Maglor hissed. “Look around you! What do you  _ think _ happened?”

Obediently, I looked around. The room was quite horribly messy, but that was hardly anything new. “A small hurricane passed through the house?”

“Think this is funny, do you? Have a look at  _ this _ .” Maglor picked something up off the floor and shoved it roughly at my chest.

I squinted at the half-destroyed object. “Is this...your composition notebook?”

“It  _ was _ ,” said Maglor. “Until that damned beast of yours came in here and  _ devoured _ it.”

I shrugged. “Sorry, I suppose. But you know how he is around paper. You really ought to keep the door closed.”

“Sorry?  _ Sorry?  _ Do you have any idea what was in there?”

“I don’t know. G flat?”

“What was in there,” Maglor replied, in the low voice he only used when indescribably furious, “was the operetta I am writing for my final project at the Royal Academy. The project that I absolutely must finish within two months if I intend to graduate this summer.”

Guilt, hot and painful, began to spread through my stomach. As usual, I fought it down, and what came out of my mouth was pure spite. “Well, perhaps if you weren’t so bloody messy, this wouldn’t have happened! Everyone’s told you a hundred times you oughtn’t to leave your things everywhere, but you do anyway…”

“Well, if  _ you  _ could control your dog I would still have the first act of a piece I can never write again because I’ve already  _ forgotten  _ half of it!”

The dog, at this point in the argument, seemed to realize people were upset and began whining piteously, rubbing himself against my leg. I glared at Maglor. “Look what you’ve done now, you’ve upset the dog!”

“Upset the dog, have I? Oh, heaven forbid I should  _ upset the dog _ , he’s only gone and ruined my entire future…”

“ _ BOYS! _ ”

We both stopped shouting abruptly and turned to the door, where Dad stood looking daggers at the pair of us.

“Explain yourselves, please,” Dad snapped. “You’ve been shaking the bloody walls with your shouting and your little brothers are terrified. What on earth could either of you have done to cause an argument of this magnitude?”

Naturally, we both started shouting our side of the argument at the exact same time. Dad listened for a moment, then held up one hand to silence us.

“I’ve heard quite enough. You will  _ both  _ stop this shouting immediately and return to your rooms. Maglor, clean up this mess. You  _ must  _ learn to be more organized if you ever plan to be successful. Celegorm, learn to control that dog before he rips the house apart or I will send him back to the Duke of Kilhenny along with your horse, your gun, and any other of your possessions I deem you’re too irresponsible to own. Am I understood?”

Dumbly, we both nodded.

(Though we did stick our tongues out at one another as I dragged Huan back to my room)


	2. Attempted Reconciliation

“Honestly, ‘Del, you should have been there, it was an absolute nightmare. Poor Huan was quaking in his boots, or would have been if he had boots. Why must Maglor be so melodramatic constantly? It was only a bloody notebook.”

“Cripes on a cracker, Celegorm, may we please talk about something other than your dog and brothers for ten minutes?” my cousin Aredhel asked irritably. I’d begged to be allowed to go riding with her the day after the argument—despite being a fourteen-year-old girl, Aredhel was an extremely sound young thing and one of the few people I could stand being around when I was upset.

“I’ve got some simply horrible stories from school to tell you,” Aredhel went on. “Marjorie Havisham was my best friend last term, and now she’s constantly stealing my comb and pouring talcum powder in my shoes, and I can’t think  _ why _ . Girls’ schools are much worse than boys’ schools, since girls are so much more creatively nasty. Do you remember last year when Julie Ambrose cut off my braid while I was sleeping because I got a higher mark in French than her?”

Indeed, I’d always been impressed by the sheer Machiavellian cruelty it seemed Aredhel’s classmates were capable of. Had the Davenport Academy for Girls been more conveniently located, I may have tried to sneak in and observe some of these vicious heiresses for myself (the prospect was oddly attractive).

“You’ve still got that look on your face, old boy,” Aredhel said sagely “Still upset, eh?”

“Don’t be silly, I’m not four years old. We fight all the time, it will blow over.” I grimaced. “I think.”

“If you were to ask me—which I know you won’t, as you’re much too proud—I would say you’re probably feeling a bit guilty. And so perhaps you ought to do something to make it up to your brother. “

“Such as?”

“Well, do you remember when we were children and I lost Turgon’s favorite teddy bear at the beach playing pirate ship? I bought him a brand-new one with all my pocket money and we made up right away.”

“Not a bad idea, ‘Del, not bad at all. Of course, I’m not admitting he was right…”

“Naturally not.”

“But if it will shut him up I suppose it’s worth it.”

“Brilliant! Now let us never speak of this again. Race you back to the stables?”

(I most certainly let her win)

 

Things were disturbingly quiet in the upstairs hallway when I returned that evening. I’d become accustomed, since coming home, to hearing some Mozart or Beethoven tunes constantly floating out of Maglor’s room, but at the moment it was utterly silent. Swallowing hard, I knocked on the door.

Maglor, when he opened it, made for something of a pathetic sight. He was wearing a patched old dressing gown he’d probably been in all day, his hair was even wilder than usual, and his eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. With a twinge of embarrassment, I realized he had been crying.

“Can I help you?” he said quietly.

“Er...yes. May I come in?”

He hesitated for a moment, then nodded, opening the door wider. I was shocked to see, upon entering, that he had apparently been cleaning.

“Your room looks much neater,” I said. “Well done.”

“Yes, well.” There was a note of bitterness in Maglor’s voice. “Apparently I’ll never be successful otherwise.”

Not entirely certain how to reply to that, I held out what I’d brought him. “Look, I...I got you something. It’s a new notebook. I got it at that posh music shop on Oxford Road, cost me a whole week’s pocket money…”

“Thank you,” Maglor cut me off in an oddly flat voice. “I appreciate that.”

“I know you must be upset about losing your final project,” I said. “But surely you can remember most of it, can’t you? I’m sure it’ll be just as good as before.”

“Truthfully, Celegorm? I don’t think I’m going to rewrite it. I don’t think I’m going to write anything.”

“But...don’t you need a final project to graduate?”

“I. Don’t.  _ Want _ . To. Graduate,” Maglor spat out. “Every time I think about leaving the Academy I feel like I’m going to be sick. It’s my  _ home _ , all my friends are there, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do out in the real world. Happy?”

“But…” It was the only word I seemed to be able to say. “But...Dad’s always saying you could have graduated last year and Herr Meissner told him they’re running out of things to teach you.”

“Being talented and being able to make a living are not the same thing, Celegorm. Don’t they teach that at St. Francis?”

“Nonsense, you have nothing to worry about. Dad and Granddad Finwë will do anything in their power to help you succeed…”

“I am  _ not  _ accepting help from my family. Absolutely not. It would be a...complete betrayal of every artistic principle I’ve ever had.”

_ Melodramatic idiot _ , I thought, though didn’t say it. “Well, anyway, surely…”

“Thank you for the new notebook, Celegorm,” Maglor said firmly. “It was very kind of you. Will you excuse me, please? I need to get some sleep.” He shepherded me out of the room and closed the door behind me, leaving me feeling oddly worse than before.

 

“It’s jolly unfair, Huan,” I remarked the next day. “Here I come home for a nice bit of peace and quiet during the holiday and what do I get? Nonsense. Endless nonsense.”

Huan looked up from the hole he was digging in the back garden and made a sympathetic noise. As everyone in the family was either too angry or too busy to speak with me, my main source of conversation recently had been the dog— which was absolutely fine by me. 

“Maglor’s worried about  _ his  _ future? I’m the one everyone should be concerned about. What am I good for, other than loafing about in the woods? One can hardly study fox hunting at Oxford, and Dad will never forgive me if I don’t go into some kind of profession…

“Honestly, Huan, you have no idea how lucky you are. Your only concerns are eating and following orders. I would give  _ anything  _ to be a dog.”

Huan was nearly invisible at this point, having dug a hole nearly two feet deep. Mum would be furious, I knew, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. At least it would be something else to think about.

Suddenly, Huan stopped digging and let out a triumphant-sounding howl. I got up from the bench where I had been sitting and rushed over. “What did you find, boy? Dinosaur bones? We can sell them to the Natural History Museum and make a fortune…”

But it wasn’t a bone that Huan was holding in his mouth when he came out of the hole. It was a small, dirty metal object that, after I moment, I was surprised to find I recognized.

“Huan, you’re  _ brilliant! _ ” I cried. “No one’s seen this for ages! He’ll have to forgive me now, he’ll absolutely have to.  _ Good dog! _ ”


	3. Loose Ends

I finally found Maglor in the kitchen, bending over a frying pan. His hair was tied tightly back and he was wearing one of Mum’s flowery aprons, which would have been funny under different circumstances.

“Smells delicious in here. What are you cooking?”

“Pancakes,” Maglor replied softly, flipping one into the air and watching as it fell gracefully back in the pan. “I volunteered to cook breakfast this morning. Always relaxes me.”

“Do you ever find it odd that we’re the only wealthy family in Britain without any servants? Uncle Fingolfin’s family has  _ two  _ cooks on staff.”

“Not particularly. You know how keen Dad is on those self-sufficiency ideas he picked up from Thoreau. Besides,” Maglor said with a small smile, “it’s much cheaper to just have us do  all the chores. Incidentally, is there a reason you’ve brought your dog into the kitchen? I don’t think Mum would approve.”

“There is, in fact. Huan was destroying the garden earlier and he found something I think you’ll be fairly pleased to see.” I held out what had been in the hole.

Maglor stared at it. “My...my old harmonica? I lost this when I was  _ twelve _ .”

“Yes, and you were miserable about it, I remember, and Mum said leprechauns had taken it. Apparently she was wrong. It’s a bit rusty but I think it’ll still work.”

“You found this?” Maglor asked, not to me but to Huan, who barked happily in reply. Maglor smiled and, kneeling down, hesitantly reached out a hand to scratch Huan behind the ears. Delighted at the attention, Huan leaped up and licked his nose, almost knocking him over.

“You know, I’ve always been more of a cat person,” Maglor remarked, picking himself back up. “But I think Huan may have some redeeming qualities after all.” He looked at me and grinned. “Much like his owner.”

“You’ve got some redeeming qualities as well. More than just a few. Listen, Maglor,” I said hurriedly. “You can’t give up on your final project. You have to graduate. You’re going to do brilliantly, everyone knows it, whether you get help from Dad or not. Out of the bunch of us, except maybe Curufin, you’re the one who’s actually got the most of Dad’s mad-genius blood. So don’t give up. You can’t.”

“All right then,” said Maglor, smiling brilliantly. “I won’t. I’ll rewrite it, if you feel so strongly about my graduating. But listen, you know you’ll be all right too, won’t you? You’re the bravest person I know, you can do anything you like with your life. As long as Huan’s there to help you,” he added with a smirk.

“Well, Oromë says the dogs in his line can live to over twenty years, so I suppose I won’t have any troubles for a while.”

“Twenty years?” Maglor exclaimed in mock horror. “Goodness, I’ll still have to put up with him when I’m nearly forty? Of course, by then I’ll be married to a beautiful ballet dancer and have eight children so I suppose I can avoid Huan if necessary…”

“Not if I have anything to say about it. Hurry up with those pancakes, I’m starving.”

 

Easter luncheon the next day was, of course, the usual buzz of overlapping and nearly incomprehensible conversations.

“I need more ham than you, I’m growing faster…”

“How can you be growing faster? We’re identical!”

“...I’ve got to get Fingon to help me study next week, I keep forgetting what  _ habeas corpus  _ means…”

“Maglor, Father O’Flaherty asked if you’ll sing at Easter Mass tonight…”

“Yes, but only if he gives me his recipe for Irish soda bread.”

“I can’t  _ wait  _ to get back to St. Francis, I bet Johnny Wilson five pounds I’ll get a perfect score in our maths exam…”

“Ahem,” Dad said loudly. All conversations hushed immediately as we looked at him in anticipation. “I haven’t had a chance to say it yet, but I would like to point out how truly wonderful it is to have the entire family back together for the holiday. Despite the fact that my hearing may never recover—” he shot Maglor and I a look— “it’s always a treat to have all of my brilliant children under the same roof. And, of course, it’s been generally pleasant to meet our newest member of the family.” He grinned at Huan, who was very politely sitting next to me and not at all trying to steal ham off my plate. “Which reminds me, Celegorm, I’ve been in touch with the groundskeeper at St. Francis, and he says he’s got plenty of room in his cottage for Huan if you’re in need of some canine company for the rest of term.”

I nearly spat out my tea. “ _ What?  _ You mean I’m allowed to bring him to school with me?”

“Naturally, if you’d like to. Though I assume he won’t distract you from your studies,” Dad said with mock seriousness. “You’ve got a gift with animals, you know. It’d be a shame not to develop it.”

Much to my shame, I could feel myself starting to blush. “Thanks awfully, Dad. You didn’t have to do that for me.”

“Thank Maglor, really. It was his idea.”

I glanced over at my brother, who gave me a wink before tucking back into his food.

In a way, I supposed, it really was good to be home.


End file.
